Battery Park's new carousel opens Thursday

New Yorkers can take a ride and see city views from a new perspective at Battery Park's SeaGlass Carousel, which opens Thursday.

The eye-catching structure, in development for the past decade, consists of 30 luminescent fiberglass fish contained in a seashell-shaped dome. Situated in the Tiffany & Co.-sponsored Woodland Gardens within the park, the development cost $16 million, half in public funds. The Battery Park Conservancy anticipates the carousel will become an iconic cultural attraction for the city, in the park that sees more than six million visitors a year.

"It's supposed to put you into a different level within the urban fabric; a different environment, a different feeling and a sense of being closer to the water and to marine life," Warrie Price, president of The Battery Conservancy, told amNY.

With views from Broadway to the Statue of Liberty on the ride, Price says it allows visitors to "really understand being at the tip of Manhattan."

"We created something downtown that will be a spectacle to watch," said designer George Tsypin at a news conference yesterday, adding that the ride's unique design brings the carousel into the the 21st century.

The 3 1/2-minute ride will cost $5. The carousel will be open from 1 p.m. through midnight today, then seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.